Why scripting is so important

So the other day I wanted to play around with some new lighting and figured I’d work on some clips to throw into our demo reel. Easy right? “I know the info, I’ll just wing it”. I couldn’t have been more wrong. If you’re anything like me, the transitioning from behind the lens to in front of the lens hasn’t been a very easy process but “practice makes perfect” is what they say.

I set up a pop-up studio with some lighting and wanted to add that cool Wistia-style light that shines on the background behind the subject. Everything looked great besides the passable wrinkles in the backdrop and me. I started editing out the nuggets and realized that all the funny things I did in between to feel natural were pretty funny. So what started as a talking head with a few points to pepper into our demo reel turned into an outtake video since I seemed to trip over every other word. Anyways, this was a lesson that taught me to script everything even if you know the information like the back of your hand.

One thing I found very helpful is a teleprompter app. I don’t think it’s good to rely on things like this but it’ll help you get started and more comfortable in front of the camera.